


hello brooklyn

by deniigiq



Series: Into the Multiverse [9]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Mentor/Protégé, Multi, Office, Or More Like, Peter is petty and we love him for it, Secret Identity, Shenanigans, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, identity crisis, we are getting so close to a Team Red in Peter B's verse friends we are so close
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 12:16:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19317994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: “Soft Spidey, warm Spidey, enormous ball of hate,” Miles said as he held a taming hand out in front of him in Peter’s direction. Peter made his suit eyes go as wide as possible and made a show of looking between Miles and the hand.“You stay right there,” Miles threatened.(Peter B. meets the Miles in his verse and thereafter spends some time trying to convince people that he, Peter Parker, is Spiderman.)





	hello brooklyn

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 100th fic!! Holy shit, WOW. 
> 
> So I'll be doing something over on my tumblr to celebrate, so go ahead and check that out if you're interested: https://deniigi.tumblr.com/post/185771203667/
> 
> In the meantime, just some notes for names because we're adding another Miles into the mix. 
> 
> Peter/B = Peter B  
> Blondie = Blond Peter  
> Miles = Peter B.'s Miles  
> Baby Miles = ITSV Miles  
> Tats = Inimitable Peter  
> Benj = Noir

“Parker, someone’s downstairs screaming for you. Get him out of the lobby or it’s off with your head,” Jameson threatened before slamming the door to the computer lab where all them poor artists were struggling for sympathy and a wage. Half of his fellows didn’t bother taking off headphones as they gave Peter various salutes of condolence and solidarity.

 

 

He was not prepared for the kid in the lobby. Nothing could have prepared him for the kid in the lobby.

His Miles was fucking tall, man. Somewhere around 5’11, with a much shorter haircut and slightly darker eyes than the Miles Peter was used to. For damn sure, however, that same flustered energy was there, hanging over the guy like a wet mop.

“Mr. Parker,” his Miles sputtered, scrambling to attention and belatedly holding out a hand in greeting, “My name is Miles Morales, I’m from Empire State University’s sociology department, and I was wondering if you maybe had a second to answer some questions?”

Aha.

Aha.

No.

“Mr. Parker!!”

“Get lost, kid. I’m closed for the day,” Peter called over his shoulder.

“Closed? But the building’s--” His Miles, bless him, spun around to look back at the automatic doors before getting it. “Wait! No, no. It’s uh. It’s about your work! Please, sir. It’ll just be a second, it won’t take more than a second.”

Uh-huh.

Nope.

Peter could smell the Bad Idea on this one. He wasn’t ready for a Miles in his verse yet. He’d just figured out how to get the Miles from Blondie’s verse to sit still for twenty seconds.

It involved a yo-yo.

Then a tamagotchi. Then a lava lamp.

Basically, anything which, to his baby sensibilities, was a relic from an ancient world seemed to do the trick. It helped that 90% of the time, it was the first time that Benj had seen anything like that shit and so he lost his fucking gourd with each and every new toy. Baby Miles fed on Benj’s enthusiasm; he was captivated by watching Benj learn about new things because Benj had a Mythbusters-esque taste for destruction.

He’d just smash the fuck out of each new object and then pick it apart and reassemble it into a much shittier version of its earlier self.

Or perhaps a much better version. It was anyone’s guess.

Peni screamed and joined in any time he did it because really, those two shared the same methodology in terms of engineering.

So no. He had his hands full of baby Spideys who required more supervision than the multiverse could afford them. He did not need another one.

“Mr. Parker! Wait!”

Especially not in his own verse. He had enough going on in his own verse.

He heard the crash behind him. Then the sound of people swearing and chastising the kid.

Peter stopped to groan at the heavens. To curse this child’s persistence.

“Five minutes, sir,” Miles babbled, scrabbling back in front of him in the hallway. “Just five minutes, and I’ll be out of your hair forever, I promise.”

Miles pressed his hands together in front of his chest and looked up at Peter desperate and earnest. He didn’t have to do that shit because in his two-second intermission there, Peter had decided that this was just fuckin’ fate. This was how his life was and going against it, at this point, was pointless.

Lean into the misery, Parker. Just lean in.

This is your future now, look at him. He’s trying so hard.

Wait.

Holy fuck, did that mean he was going to die???

Actually, never fucking mind. Sorry, pal. Shit to do. People to see. Harbingers to avoid.

“Look, kid, I’m on a schedule—” he lied stepping backwards and then around this interaction, “I got photos to edit and—”

“That’s exactly it!” Miles cried, _following him_. God. Spidey reflexes. Mimicry. The worst. “I just—your photos—I saw them online and—”

“I don’t do lessons, man,” Peter said over top of him, trying to get around the guy in the hallway and being blocked at every turn.

Come _on._

“I don’t want lessons, I just have some questions. It won’t take more than—”

“PARKER.”

For god’s sake, Jameson. Not now.

“You let this kid into the building? I told you to handle it,” Jameson growled as he stalked down the hallway like Popeye. Swinging them arms and blowing steam out of his ears.

“No, he just followed me—” Peter started.

“You had _one job_ , Parker,” Jameson shrieked. “And you can’t even do that??”

“No, sir. Listen—”

“You _agree_ that you can’t even do that??”

For FUCK’S SAKE MAN.

“I am trying to—”

“What is it you want, boy?” Jameson snapped at Miles who flinched at the tone.

Hey, now. There was no need for that.

Peter put himself between Jameson and the kid and adopted his special Editor Soothing Tones.

“It’s just a misunderstanding, sir,” he negotiated. “He wants an interview for his college, that’s all.”

“An interview?” Jameson barked. “With you?”

He cackled and slapped Peter on the shoulder. And Peter saw the cue to laugh with him. Saw it and watched it waltz by, unamused.

“Sir, I am a professional photographer,” he pointed out.

Jameson laughed again and mumbled something incoherent, then cleared his throat and stood back to attention.

“Handle it, Parker. I want _you_ ,” he jabbed a finger at Miles who flinched again, “Out of my sight in the next twenty seconds, you hear?”

“Y-yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Miles said.

“We are getting on that right now,” Peter said over him, grabbing Jameson’s shoulders and encouraging him back towards the doors from whence he came. Back to hell, really. Get ye, get ye, foul demon. No sacrifices until midnight. They weren’t ready for publication yet.

Jameson blinked in surprise at the physical removal and dug his heels in. He whirled around and scowled at Peter.

“Twenty seconds!!” he barked.

“Like I said, I’m on it, boss,” Peter said.

“NOW.”

Alright, fuck it. Miles was a more mobile obstacle.

Peter switched tact and abandoned Jameson to the center of the hall to grab Miles and steer him out of sight. He didn’t have to look back to know that Jameson was sniffing in satisfaction and then stamping off back towards his personal elevator to the netherworld.

 

 

Out at street level, Peter took a deep breath and started to say something along the lines of ‘look kid, I know why you’re here,’ but Miles beat him to the punch.

“I’m so sorry,” he blurted out, “I didn’t mean to contact you like this. I sent you some emails, but you didn’t respond and I kind of needed answers like, now.”

Uh.

Right. That was fine, but Peter knew why he was—

“And I mean, it’s super rude and invasive and I’m _so_ sorry. I really am.”

It was fine. Peter—

“And really, Mr. Parker, it’s just like, two questions. It won’t take more than a minute.”

Cool. That worked out because Peter—

“So I was just wondering if you could point me in the direction of Spiderman?”

Silence.

“Uh,” Peter managed to make himself say after his brain had processed that question at least twice. “You? Sorry, what?”

“Spiderman,” Miles said, voice almost cracking, “I just. Here,” he scrambled to dig out his phone and showed it to Peter, scrolling through different tabs with his pictures on them. His pictures of, well, himself. The ones that he staged every so often when he needed a good shot to shut Jameson up.

Miles dropped the phone and stared into Peter’s eyes.

“You always have the clearest images. It’s like he knows you’re taking them. It’s like—I figured that you guys have some kind of agreement—which is totally fine, by the way. No judgment there at all. I’m sure that that’s how lots of crime photographers work and whatnot—but I really, _really_ need to talk to Spiderman. Like, it’s urgent. Super urgent. So I was wondering if maybe you could like, maybe give me a clue as to where to find him? If you can’t, that’s fine, I totally get it. It’s just a—”

Peter didn’t hear the rest of what this kid was fucking saying because he was just gobsmacked.

Miles—his Miles, not multiverse Miles—seriously, actually did not know who Spiderman was. He had seriously, actually come to _The Bugle_ thinking that Peter was just some kind of super-great Spidey photographer with some contacts under the table.

“Miles,” he said.  

“Oh, you remembered my name—”

“Miles,” Peter repeated. “I don’t know how to say this, bud. But—”

Miles stared at him, expecting the worst. Preparing to be crushed.

He had to be maybe twenty years old.

God _damnit_.

“Miles, I’m—”

“Sorry,” Miles sighed, deflating. “It’s okay, you don’t’ have to say it. I get it. Sorry for wasting your time, Mr. Parker. And thanks for protecting me from your uh, psycho boss back there. I’ll let you get back to work.”

Peter’s brain stopped working for a second again and when it kicked back on, he was watching Miles’s shoulders and backpack make their way down the steps down to the pavement.

“Wait, Miles!” he called after.

He took the stairs in more of a leap then a shuffle and went chasing after the guy.

 

 

He caught up to the kid only about a block away. He caught his shoulder and Miles snapped and automatically twisted out of the grip. His fist came up to deal with his assaulter and Peter caught it before it went into his face.

Miles stared at him with huge eyes.

Peter could feel the Spidey Sense screeching in the back of his head. Screeching for Miles’s to respond to it.

The Spidey Sense loved multiverse Miles. It responded to his approaching presence with screeching and then this weird, wriggling, jittery feeling when baby Miles’s Spidey Sense pinged back. It did the same thing to a slightly lesser degree with Peni and Gwen. Which Peter took to mean that his Spidey Sense was essentially some kind of hyperactive Papa Dog. One of them Shiba Inu things that needed a whole lot of attention and kind of danced and trampled on its babies out of nothing but love.

This time, though, Miles failed to respond properly. That is to say, he failed to ping back. There was no full-body tackling or latching onto Peter’s ribs or just generally any suggestion that he wanted to reach out and touch Peter to satiate the beast.

Nope, just the wrigglies.

Kid looked pale as hell. He ripped his arm back and dropped eye contact.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Peter said. “You’re like m—”

“Really, Mr. Parker, it’s very kind of you, but you don’t have to do anything. You don’t even know me,” Miles said.

Uh.

Well.

Debatable.

But also not important right now, they’d get to that in time. What was important right now was establishing—

The kid was gone. The kid was running, no, sprinting away. Down the pavement, knocking into folks and apologizing and knocking into more folks coming up from the train station to trip all over him.

Peter didn’t follow him. His chest felt full. Tight. The Spidey Sense _screamed_ in devastation. Wailed in despair at the lack of hugs going on.

He felt?

Offended?

 

 

“Babe, give it to me straight,” Peter said that evening, maybe a little more irritable and manic than intended, “I totally look like Spiderman, yeah? Like, if you just passed me on the street, and I wasn’t all red and blue-d out, I could still be Spiderman, right? I _could_ be. Like, plausibly. Like, if you had any sense in your head, or were comparing me to a picture of me in the suit, right?”

MJ stared at him with a wooden spoon in her hand which spoke of nothing but an attempt to cook and ergo trouble.

“No,” she said.

God _damnit._

 

“Wade,” Peter agitated the next day, “If you were looking for Spiderman and you just _happened_ to find me first, would you think—”

“Think what?” Wade demanded immediately. “Is someone botherin’ you?”

A pause.

“No,” Peter said carefully.

“Someone find you out, Peter? Don’t worry, I got this. Gimme their name.”

No. Nope. That was not what was happening here.

“I just want confirmation,” Peter said slowly, “That I look like Spiderman. That anyone with a brain and critical thinking skills could tell that I’m Spiderman.”

Wade stared. And stared and stared.

“So that’s a no on the name,” he said.

For fuck’s sake.

 

 

He hadn’t fucking meant for this to happen. He’d spent his whole life being an unbearably shitty liar and making up two billion excuses which he could not possibly make more transparent. And yet somehow, _somehow_ , he’d managed to fuck everything up in the best possible way?

Like.

No.

Something else had to be afoot here.

He had to test it. Someone had to believe him.

 

 

Lynne sat at the desk next to him. She’d sat there for the last two years. They had bonded, him and Lynne. Nothing quite bonds you like an editing marathon with a horrendously looming deadline. The bonds between artists were sacred.

Lynne joked all the time that Peter and Spiderman were besties. She gave him knowing looks and bouncing eyebrows when Jameson slammed into the room and announced that he needed a fucking picture of Spidey to slander.

So Peter decided to start with her.

“Hey Lynne,” he said, “Wanna know a secret?”

She paused, pretzel chips piled with hummus halfway to her mouth.

“Say more,” she said, enraptured.

“Okay, but it’s real hush-hush. Promise me you won’t tell anyone,” Peter whispered.

Lynne nodded, open-mouthed.

“Cross your heart,” Peter said.

She crossed it without looking.

“Okay, so. I’m Spiderman,” Peter said. And bit his lip. Waiting.

Lynne stared, still gaping. Her mouth started to close and then she snorted. And giggled and wriggled.

“You’re Spiderman,” she said.

“Uh, yeah,” Peter said.

She started snickering and then cackling.

“ _You’re_ Spiderman,” she repeated.

“That’s what I said,” Peter pointed out.

“You.”

“Uh.”

“ _You’re_ Spiderman. You, Peter.”

What was the hard part of this? Where exactly was the stumbling block? Had he muttered? Maybe spoken too softly?

“Hey, Brenda,” Lynne said, leaning out of her cubicle. “Peter’s Spiderman.”

HOLY SHIT, GIRL, NO. YOU JUST FUCKING PROMISED.

Brenda leaned out from her box and stared at Peter with dead eyes.

“Sure, he is,” she said, then went right back to her work.

Lynne snorted and giggled and choked on her pretzels. When she was done choking and drawing the attention and irritation of everyone else in the lab, she reached over and squeezed Peter’s hand.

“It’s okay, boo-bear,” she said, “Your secret’s safe with me.”

 

 

Hoping that that mortifying shit had been a fluke, he tried going to the journalists. They were paranoid people. They had a betting pool on Spiderman’s identity, he was sure of it. If not simply because Jameson had a new suspect every damn week. So he not-so-casually went to go make a coffee in the breakroom.

German and Rachel were there, chatting away. He knew them. They’d been out for drinks. So he sidled his way over and asked them if they could keep a secret.

Like cats they both locked huge eyes on him.

“Go on,” Rachel said.

“Promise you’ll keep it,” Peter said. “It’s kind of a big deal.”

They promised silently with their saucer eyes.

“Okay, so. I’m Spiderman,” Peter said. He braced for impact.

Tensed.

Every muscle in his body pulled back into a flinch.

It felt like diving into ice water every time.

“Oh,” Rachel finally said. German’s face did something strange and she jabbed him hard in the side with her elbow. “Thanks for telling us, Peter,” she said with a sweet smile. “That’s a really hard thing to do.”

Eh.

What.

“So hard,” German coughed when Rachel stamped on his foot. “Really, uh. Brave.”

Dude, what?

“So do you do parties, or?” German asked.

Are you kidding me?

 

 

He was just getting pissed off now. This was horseshit. He was Spiderman. He literally was Spiderman.

But no one believed him. No one in the entire goddamn office believed him.

He could—he’d worked here for ten fucking years. He was the Spiderman guy. Mr. Spiderman’s personal paparazzi. He ate, breathed, and slept Spiderman.

How?

Just how???

He started to maybe get a little petty about this shit. Started sticking mugs to counters. Clinging to doors. Catching papers and bottles and pens that fell out of hands before they even hit the ground. He started moving shit like the reception desk which was _attached to the floor_ , so you know, shit that was too heavy to move and got nothing.

Nada.

Zip.

He held his head in his hands at his desk in the lab and tried to work out if he was about to have a heart attack or a stroke.

Raleigh popped in and said that she’d heard from some others that Peter had developed some kind of like, supernatural power to throw shit into trashcans from across rooms and he jerked her way with fucking hope in his chest.

He’d never wanted to be found out more. Never in his life.

“So like, wanna join our company basketball team?” Raleigh asked. “We practice on Wednesdays and Saturdays.”

A heart attack it was, then.

 

 

He might have cracked. Maybe had a little bit of a breakdown. Maybe snapped when Jameson stormed into the graphic design lab and informed the room at large that he needed an image of that goddamned masked menace.

And Peter might have stood up and said, in front of god and everyone, “Sir, I _am_ the masked menace.”

And Jameson froze. Everyone froze.

Then Jameson squeaked.

And squeaked again and wheezed in his throat as he clasped Peter on the shoulder and told him, “Yeah, son. You sure are.”

And then told everyone to get back to work, and Parker, I want an image by eleven.

 

 

“Baby, what’s wrong?” MJ asked. “Honey, it’s been hours. Why are you crying?”

Because he’d fucked up so bad. And he’d fucked up through fucking up and he couldn’t understand why the universe hated him exactly as much as it did.

“I don’t like that kind of talk, Peter. Would Wade make you feel better? I’m calling Wade.”

 

 

He sat on the floor of the living room and laid it out for both MJ and Wade so that they would understand the gravity of his situation and the two of them actually looked at each other, actually made prolonged eye contact without any sign of insecurity or distrust. None of that.

They just looked concerned.

“Pete, I’m not sure I understand how this is a bad thing,” Wade said.

“Miles needs to know I’m Spiderman,” Peter blurted out helplessly. “He needs to know. He needs to trust me. How do I make him trust me??”

MJ touched Wade’s arm and he gave her the floor.

“Peter, it’s never mattered to you before,” she said. “Just go out and be Spiderman. Miles will come to you. You don’t have to go to him.”

Peter could only sigh.

It was worth a try.

 

 

When he’d become Spiderman, he’d just about become obsessed with ensuring that nobody knew he was Spiderman. Oh, sure, as a kid he’d been dying for recognition. He reveled in disrupting Jameson’s daily life. Nothing had been more satisfying than getting a rise out of the guy. Issue after issue of _The Bugle_ and _The Bulletin_ and _The Times_ had speculated on the identity of the mysterious, friendly neighborhood Spiderman and the fact that nobody knew had felt powerful.

Now, the fact that nobody would believe him made him feel helpless.

Was Spiderman such a has-been that nobody cared anymore who he was? Or was Peter just such an incompetent oaf that no one thought it even possible?

It stung. No, it hurt.

It wasn’t Spiderman that no one believed, it was Peter Parker.

That sucked.

Ah, well. Depression, my old friend, we’ve never done things easily, have we?

But you know what?

Whatever.

Spiderman had never been in it for the fame. No sense in starting now.

He went out in the suit. Did the usual. Stopped a couple of robberies. Scared a couple of gangs. And as an extra fuck you to his boss for the misery of the last week, went and found a bucket of paint for the man’s window. Guy was getting cocky. Peter couldn’t have that, now, could he?

 

 

Jameson was screeching bloody murder against that damn Spiderman when Peter came in the next morning and that shit felt nice. He’d spent a couple of extra minutes doodling Jameson’s face in the drying paint.

It wasn’t flattering.

He didn’t care.

 

 

He went back out that night and found a pipe bomb in the subway. He broke it in half and laid out a trail of its pieces all the way back to the police department. Curious detectives followed the breadcrumbs right to curious would-be-terrorists who wanted to know why their bomb hadn’t gone off. The terrorists followed the same breadcrumbs right to the cops.

So that was fun.

 

 

The next night, Peter perched himself high up on cranes to watch the city.

The night after he found a kitten in an alley and it literally followed him home.

He took Friday off to take kitty to the vet and to try to leave her there.

It didn’t work.

He took Saturday off because MJ wanted him to take professional-grade pictures of their new bundle of joy so that she could troll her friends from highschool on facebook.

On Sunday, Miles emerged out of the woodwork and edged his way, slow and petrified, across the crane Peter was perched on.

Peter watched him give himself a pep-talk every couple of beams from the opposite side of the crane and smirked.

As soon as Miles got to the last couple of feet, he twitched towards the side and Miles cried,

“NO, NO, NO. Good Spidey. Stay there. We’re good. We’re happy. Just stay there.”

Peter kind of liked fucking with him.

Kind of a lot.

Call it spite. Call it schadenfreude. Call it whatever you want.

He dove off the side of the metal frame and heard Miles swear profusely in his wake.

 

 

Peter was learning a lot from the kitten. She was a bad influence.

She caught a moth and tried to eat it and so Peter went out and caught a Jackal and tried to eat it.

She clawed up the side of the couch when Peter was chasing her around the living room and he took notes. Three hours later, he threw himself around and around a cluster of storage containers until his perp was practically boiling with rage. He then hid in the shadows and when the guy came hurtling around onto his side, he lunged for his toes.

The kitten knew what was up.

He called her Egg. Her full name was Egg Salad, but there was no need to be so formal.

 

 

Peter lived for his Miles. Lived for him.

The guy had a fucking spectacular sense of frustrated humor. Or maybe just humor to Peter. Maybe it was simply frustrated behavior to Miles.

Didn’t matter.

“Soft Spidey, warm Spidey, enormous ball of _hate_ ,” Miles said as he held a taming hand out in front of him in Peter’s direction. Peter made his suit eyes go as wide as possible and made a show of looking between Miles and the hand.

“You stay right there,” Miles threatened.

Peter _loved_ his threats. They were like Baby Miles’s threats, only this guy was fully intent on following through with them.

Peter liked that energy. Determination. Tenacity.

His Miles was bigger, stronger. More daring than baby Miles. He cursed Peter and called him a vast variety of names and wished pain upon him in imaginative ways. He didn’t love heights, but he would be damned before that stopped him from getting his grip on Peter.

Come hell or high water, this Miles was going to make Peter his mentor.

And Peter _loved_ that about him. He loved the chase. He loved the recklessness. He loved how Miles hadn’t figure out his powers yet, but every time he gave chase, he got fed up and found some fucking way of getting shit done, with or without the sticky hands and super-strength.

Peter’s Miles was brilliant. Smart and funny. He swore at Peter constantly. He was fast. A quick thinker. He got lost in the chase, too, dear boy. Threw himself over fences and down alleys and up walls to stay on Peter’s heels.

Peter wondered how long he could keep this up.

He wondered if maybe this was how he was meant to mentor this boy. Not through gentleness, but through antagonism.

The thought made him grin.

 

 

The answer was two months. Two months he spent, wreaking havoc upon the city with Miles right on his tail. Two months of Miles getting more and more furious. More and more determined to catch this fucking arachnid-raccoon.

Two months before Peter went home after work and didn’t go out. He didn’t have to. Miles would be out there, searching for him. Crashing through crime scene after crime scene, stealing and breaking guns in half and twisting knives out of grips and threatening all these horrified bodies with a “Where the _fuck_ is Spiderman?”

He could have been Daredevil’s protégé with that attitude.

Daredevil actually had come to Peter, dumbfounded, to ask him where he’d found his apprentice.

“Nowhere,” Peter told the guy. Pleased to see him non-violent for once and scrubbing at the back of his hair in confusion. “He found me.”

“Well fuck,” Murdock said. “If he’s got a twin, send him my way, yeah? The two of us can’t live forever.”

“Sure thing, Double D,” Peter said. “Hey, by the way, you ever thought about getting a guide dog?”

A pause.

“Dogs are horrible.”

“No, you’re right, hold on. I got something better.”

 

 

Wade asked him what the fuck he was thinking talking to fuckin’ Murdock.

“Guy’s an animal,” he huffed. “He ain’t wanna be friends. We asked him ages ago and said no takes-backsies. You remember that, Pete? We _said_ no takes-backsies.”

Yeah, he remembered.

But, Wade Winston, consider: the power of Egg Salad.

Wade stared at the kitten as Peter held her out to him under her little kitty armpits.

“Oho,” he said, when it clicked. “I love the way you think.”

 

 

So on the one hand, he was luring Miles into the web and on the other, he was luring Murdock back to shore and Peter found himself sitting in the digital media lab at _The Bugle_ practically squirming with delight and satisfaction.

He didn’t go out that night either, to MJ’s confusion.

No.

He had a suit to make.

 

 

“Do not fucking move, you horrible creature,” Miles threatened him, staring up at him as he crouched on the neck of a street lamp.

Peter stared down emptily.

“Do not move a goddamn muscle,” Miles said with a finger, edging slowly over to the base of the post. “You stay right there, you hear me? You stay right there. We’re gonna—AH. Oh, no you don’t. You stay _right_ the fuck there.”

Peter’s Spidey Sense wanted him to hug this guy so bad. It wanted him to crush him in close and let it get all mixed up with that other fledgling Spidey Sense.

He shifted his weight.

“AH,” Miles snapped, halfway up the post. “I said don’t move. Don’t you move.”

The Spidey Sense screamed.

I know, man, Peter told it. Me, too. Soon.

He scooted along until he was on the very head of the streetlamp, to the tune of Miles’s pissed off commands. Once he got there, he settled in smug like a parrot and waited.

Miles snarled at him, his face all wrinkled. He set his sticky feet to the metal barrel of the streetlamp. He stood up parallel to the ground with a clenched jaw and then shakily started to walk up the pole until he was more or less vertical on top. He only had to windmill his arms a little bit.

Peter couldn’t contain his grin.

He inched just the slightest over a bit and Miles caught him doing it.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere. We’re talking. You and me. Right here. We’re—GODDAMNIT, SPIDEY. COME ON.”

 

 

Miles was too frustrated to give much of a shit about safety at the moment, so when Peter leapt, he followed. When Peter hit his next wall and launched himself off to the next one. Miles followed right in his footsteps. No hesitation.

No thought.

Just action.

Peter decided to put Miles’s newfound wall-walking to the test and found the tallest building on the block. He leapt to it, caught onto the edge of a fire-escape to throw himself up as high as he could onto the brick, and then started gunning it right up towards the sky.

He heard Miles’s bark of alarm after him and glanced over his shoulder to see that the kid had followed, unsteadily, but was now picking up confidence and speed. Peter kicked more power into his knees and started loping. As soon as the arch of his foot hit the ledge of the roof he pushed down as hard as he could and sprang straight up into the air. The sky. The night. He heard Miles cry out below him and he threw out a line of web to catch onto that same crane from two months ago. He let the momentum carry him into a series of wide elliptic circles but didn’t swing off when they petered off. He let himself hang more or less still instead, staring down at Miles.

“What the hell, man?” Miles shouted up at him. “Why are you like this? I just want to—I don’t want to replace you, okay? I just want to help. I just want to—you’re out here every night, doing this shit alone and I—I can do it, too. You’ve seen me. I can do what you can. I want to help you. These are my people here, too. My uncle—he died, Spidey. He died because of the people you fight. The corrupt shitheads who think that they rule this city. And people like me and my mom and dad have had to suffer because of them and it’s not _fair_. To us or anyone else it happens to. So just. I dunno. Teach me to be better. I can be better. Fate or whatever it was chose me for this damn mutation. And I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not. But I’m only as good as what I know, so _please_ , Spidey, just—”

Now that was what Peter liked to hear.

Miles almost overbalanced down there when Peter dropped the slinger. He caught it, though, and then looked up, gaping.

Peter kicked his feet a little, making himself into a bit of a pendulum.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Any minute now, kiddo.

“Oh my god, are you serious?” Miles called up at him.

Peter kicked more power into the swing.

Tick, tock! Tick, tock!

Come on, pal. Ain’t got all night!

“Okay,” Miles breathed and looked down at the slinger in his hand. “How do I--?” he slipped it on over his wrist wrong-ways up and then twisted it, when he looked up and saw Peter, still swinging, but holding his hand down to him in the ‘twip’ gesture.

Miles watched, then imitated the gesture on the right-side-up slinger and jumped when it released web.

Peter dropped his arm twice in rapid successful down at him so he knew how to use it. Miles looked at him and then the device and tapped twice and jumped again when the web sprayed out and didn’t break itself off this time. It netted around him and he struggled to detach it before looking back up to Peter.

Peter was doing a twenty-foot pendulum by then. Getting bored. Trying to be patient.

“What are you hanging onto?” Miles asked, lifting his head to try to squint to see. Peter hiked his free-arm straight up to the crane.

Miles saw it and then set his jaw.

Ah, yeah.

They were gonna get along great.

 

 

The kid almost got it on his first try. Almost. He jumped before he looked though, so Peter went on damage control and dropped low to catch him. It was a good first attempt. He tossed Miles up onto the top of the crane moments later and then pulled himself over the edge.

Miles gasped down at the lights of the city below them in a mixture of shock and anxiety.

Peter tapped his shoulder and held out his hand for the slinger.

Miles rolled over and managed to sit up. He pulled off the slinger and handed it back.

“Uh, sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m not very good.”

Peter chuffed. And then tapped a finger into Miles’s chest.

Miles looked down at it.

“Are you asking me something?” he asked.

Peter nodded.

“Oh.”

Peter tapped Miles’s heart and then tapped his own.

“Oh,” Miles said again. “You, too, then? You agree with me?”

No, buddy. Not quite.

Peter held out a hand and slowly telegraphed his movements, wrapping it around Miles’s bare, stunned head. He brought his own in until their foreheads rested together.

Miles jerked a little bit.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Peter gave it a beat. And sure enough.

The Spidey Sense screeched and it felt like it rocked through his whole body. A rush to find the new baby. A rush to greet the new baby.

Miles’s Spidey Sense, for the first time, pinged back in greeting. Not alarm, not alertness.

Embrace.

“Oh my god,” Miles breathed when Peter moved away. “You’re like me. You’re just like me.”

Peter felt his grin widen.

He tossed his feet out from under him and plopped down next to Miles in his same posture. He untangled himself from the drawstring backpack he’d worn up there and then handed the whole thing over to the kid.

“For me?” Miles asked.

Peter nodded.

“Oh. Thank you,” Miles murmured. Peter waved it at frenetically.

“Open it?” Miles translated.

Yes, obviously. Go.

The kid warily pulled open the mouth of the bag and then his shoulders rose with shock. He pulled out the suit. Black like baby Miles’s.

Peter waved at him and his wide eyes again, then pointed again at the bag insistently. Miles dug out the slingers.

“You’ll teach me?” Miles asked.

Peter bobbed his head.

“Oh my god,” Miles said, voice cracking. “Thank you. _Thank you_.”

Ehn. Don’t mention it.

“Listen,” Miles said. “An eye for an eye. My name is Miles Morales.”

Peter hummed.

“Do you talk?” Miles asked. “Everyone online says you talk, but you’ve never spoken to me. Is it some kind of mutism? Did something happen to you?”

No, buddy.

I just learned that no one was listening lately. And that includes you.

Peter shrugged instead and then leaned to the side until he fell from the crane. He let Miles cry out and leant into the rush on the way down.

 

 

Jameson was losing his goddamn mind at the new black Spiderman running around on the red and blue one’s tail.

Losing his mind.

Screeching through corridors, throwing open windows to threaten the sky.

Peter could barely contain himself.

He brought Miles with him to pour gallons of jelly onto the guy’s office’s balcony one night.

“Dude,” Miles said once that and the night’s crime work was done. “Do you work there or something? You really hate that guy.”

Yeah, this wasn’t the first time Miles had tagged along on one of Peter’s vandalizing adventures.

It was probably around the seventh or eighth. They were a good four months into the kid’s training and Peter had a bi-weekly itch to scratch here.

He shrugged wide with his hands.

“One of these days you’re gonna slip up and just tell me,” Miles threatened him.

Peter swallowed back the urge to laugh and made a swan-diving gesture to the side.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I’ll follow,” Miles said.

 

 

Peter’s Miles met baby Miles and baby Miles pointed right in his face while looking directly at Peter in shock.

“He’s me!!!” he announced in case the rest of them hadn’t figure that out by now.

Miles gave Peter a very strong weirded-out look. Peter couldn’t explain to him about the multiverse. He’d needed words that he wasn’t ready to give the kid. So he’d done it the best way he knew how and the way that his Miles seemed to learn best.

Feet first.

“He’s me,” Miles said, waving down at baby Miles. “When I was like, twelve.”

“I’m fourteen,” Baby Miles snapped up at him.

“Twelve,” Miles repeated without looking at him or dropping Peter’s eye contact. “You’ve known this whole time?”

Peter dipped his head in a nod.

“No shit?” Miles said. “Why didn’t you—no, nevermind.”

Atta boy. So clever.

He knew better than to ask for an answer he didn’t want.

“B, why aren’t you talking?” Baby Miles suddenly asked. The others had been confused as fuck this whole time, too. Peni had come over to cling to his arm worriedly.

“He doesn’t talk,” Miles told his mini-self. “Did you not know this?”

He got the full force of an army of Spideys staring at him in alarm and disbelief. This was followed by horror and uproar as all the youngsters tried to get up in Peter’s business to make sure he wasn’t dying.

It was adorable.

The kids were on the verge of tears, though, so he relented.

“Easy, easy, I’m okay,” he promised and watched as his Miles went from dismissive to electrified.

The kids all clung in anyways.

“You talk,” Miles said stiffly.

“Of course he talks,” Baby Miles snapped at him.

“You talk,” Miles repeated, ignoring baby Miles. “You talk and you?? Why didn’t you--??? Dude, what the fuck?”

The kids all gasped at the same time. It was very hard not to laugh.

“Let go,” he told them. “And be gone with you. We’re gonna have personal time. Just me and my Miles.”

“I _am_ your Miles,” Baby Miles said mournfully.

Aw.

It’s okay little guy. Extra pats for you.

Baby Miles attached himself to Peter’s ribs. Glared at the interloper. Blondie came over to intervene and peel him off.

“No one’s saying you’re not B’s Miles,” he said. “He’s just saying that this guy is _his_ Miles. Like you’re my Miles, yeah?”

Yeah, no. The kid got that, Blondie. He just wasn’t happy about it.

“I’m rejecting you,” Baby Miles informed Blondie. “B’s my Peter now. You can have his Miles.”

Peter saw the moment Miles’s brain caught up with that sentence. He was already stiff but went even more rigid.

“Oh my god,” he wheezed. “Mr.—Mr. Parker?”

The others all went quiet.

And Peter peeled off his mask for the first time in front of the kid. He shook his hair out and then cocked a hip.

“At your service,” he said.

 

 

Miles was a little ashamed of himself, even though Peter told him not to be.

“When you didn’t pick up on it, I told half the office I was Spiderman and they all just laughed in my face,” Peter told him. “Couldn’t really expect you to believe me if the people I’ve worked with for a decade didn’t.”

“No, but I felt it, the Spidey Sense,” Miles said. “It like, I dunno. Called to yours I guess. But I thought there was no way.”

“It’s not a bad assumption,” Peter said. “I look normal. Nothing special.”

It didn’t seem to make Miles feel any better.

“But you didn’t talk to me because you thought I wouldn’t take you seriously,” he said. “For five months almost. I mean. I’m—that’s—I don’t know if I’m mad or what.”

Peter hummed.

“You can be mad,” he said. “But I feel like we got a lot of shit done, you know. Five months without words and I’d trust you with my life, kiddo. Have trusted you. Will trust you. And anyways, I talk too much and ruin everything with it. It was a nice break.”

There was a long silence before Miles lifted his face again.

“You’re not really gonna trade me for that bitty Miles, are you?” he asked.

Peter barked a laugh.

“Itsy,” he said. “We call him Itsy. There’s another one, too. We call him Bitsy. We’re gonna have to come  up with a name for you.”

Miles was devastated.

“Why can’t I just be Miles? I’m the oldest of them.”

“Don’t work that way,” Peter said. “I’m the oldest, too, but we just got too many Peters, so I’m ‘B.’”

“And the others?”

“Uh. So Blondie is the blond one, Benj is the one in black and white, Ham is the pig, and Tats you haven’t met. We also got the occasional Funsize, but he ain’t come out to play that much.”

Miles blinked at him and then huffed.

“You didn’t say you wouldn’t trade me,” he pointed out bitterly.

Peter laughed again.

“I can’t promise that,” he said. “Itsy is kind of my favorite.”

Miles huffed harder.

“I’ll show him,” he grumbled.

Peter locked him in a head lock and let him whine through his snickering.

“You’re safe for now, Miles,” he said. “I won’t trade you. After all, I put all that effort into making you Spiderman.”

“Ex _cuse_ me? _You_ put in all that effort? All you did was run away. _I_ worked my ass off, you asshole.”

Ah, yeah. He loved this kid.

He was a keeper.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had many Miles headcanons for Peter B. but I ended up going with an older, highly motivated, easily frustrated Miles for him. They kind of match. 
> 
> Oh, also. Peter B.'s Matt Murdock is allergic to cats, but he loves them. All the Matts in my verses love cats despite being allergic to them.
> 
> Now with art!: https://deniigi.tumblr.com/post/185789771152/


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